Outsider 'experts', dodgy contractors bleeding transporters
If he'd known 30 years ago how things would turn out today, he wouldn't have taken up running the business.
Rockhampton
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rockhampton. Followed categories will be added to My News.
According to a fifth-generation transport expert from Rockhampton, the future of trucking has never been in such dire straits.
Tony Hopkins, director of Hopkins Bros, said he felt like a lone voice standing up against outsiders who are bleeding the industry dry.
"There are that many people telling us how to make our haul services safe and compliant,” he said.
"We're one of the safest industries around but we're not given credit for the stringent standards we uphold.
"I was once in a meeting with about 25 so-called experts and, when I asked how many of them had a licence or had driven a truck, there was only one person put his hand up.”
Mr Hopkins said he grew up in a family of 12 of whom all bar one are still employed by the family company.
"My two sons work for us, my niece, a couple of nephews, my in-laws' in-laws,” he said.
"Just a couple of weeks ago, my nephew finished a six-year stint in the Air Force and he's come back to work with us for a while.”
Mr Hopkins said, if he'd known 30 years ago how things would turn out today, he wouldn't have taken up running the business.
"But now my family's future's at stake, I'm not going to give in,” he said.
"I'll fight to the death.”
Mr Hopkins, who employs about 65 people in total, became the president of the National Road Traders' Association for five years to try and remedy his frustrations.
"People from behind the scenes need to come out and work with leaders to get the change they want,” he said.
"There are good people within the political parties but party politics dictates what they can and can't say.”
He said the National Transport Commission has warned the treasury the industry is in freefall and that, if it collapses, it will bring the entire economy down with it.
"The industry has never been so efficient but there's all these outsiders saying we're unsafe because it makes headlines and keeps them in jobs,” he said.
"They're spouting words like 'safety' and 'environment' and that's got people running scared.”
Mr Hopkins said he doesn't care who gets in office so long as they get things done.
"The Rockhampton bypass, that was talked about back in the '60s and it's only just coming together,” he said.
"I believe if we change government now, we're not going to see it happen... again.”
Mr Hopkins said he reckons the Government could halve the wastage - "on big screen TVs and shade cloths and such” - if it focussed on quality infrastructure.
He was in Gracemere Wednesday morning at the Minister for Infrastructure, Michael McCormack's announcement about further funding for road and bridge projects in the region.
Mr Hopkins spoke in favour of the proposed upgrades in four shires of the Flynn electorate, as reported in Thursday's Morning Bulletin.
But as a final trim grade operator with the quarries, Mr Hopkins said no amount of money's enough if the roads are poorly built.
"It's not the young engineers' fault; it's the way they're taught,” he said.
"These contractors seem to have forgotten the basics of earthwork so the roads are falling apart just as quickly as they're being built.”
Originally published as Outsider 'experts', dodgy contractors bleeding transporters
Two teenagers taken to hospital after car smashes into tree
Three women, two in their teens, were taken to hospital after crashing their car into a tree at Yeppoon.
Child cash cows: Sickening pay days of resi care owners laid bare
Shareholders of a residential care provider received more than $5m last year in massive windfalls now firmly under the microscope. They’re not the only ones.